A collection of small poems (Lo fi beats and rain in the background)

Do i love you?

Dirty crinkled pages of notes written by a different body, a different mind.

"Happy Birthday!!!!! I love you Dad!!"

Hearts in orange crayon and pink highlighter scribbled the page, with a rectangular birthday cake playing center stage. Messy balloons and the weird way I've always drawn party hats; the notes are old and faded like the memories.

You were always so important

We never had enough time.

How could we?
It was only You when you came home from work and kissed my mom, smiling and smelling like smoke.

Sometimes it wasn't You, but a different you.

The green metal door slamming shut, heavy black boots thudding along the floor, the blank expression.

Then you'd see it: clothes on the floor when mom couldn't finish folding laundry -because I was fighting with my brothers-, dinner unmade in a box on the counter, kids upset because we weren't allowed to watch TV when you got home (a rule you learned to regret making) and only two cold beers left.

Sometimes I'd hold my breath waiting to see who I would get today.

This was a bad day.

You sat on the coffee table and started looking for your Xbox controller, and I knew

You withdrew, I think you knew somewhere deep down you didn't want to be that person. But neither of us could stop the storm coming.

"Grab me a case of beer"

I never liked being told those words. You were an angry drunk.

(Sorry, not drunk because obviously you thought you were Always in control, you were an adult and you could Handle yourself without my comments)

One by one the fizz of the bottles could be heard.

Then, I said something.

"Why are you doing this, you always come home and play your games and drink too much. Haven't you had enough?!"

I guess I got angry too.

"I'm an adult, I get to say when I've had enough"

Then the fighting would start. Not with me, heavens no.

Mom would comment something innocuous, you would snap back, she would snap harder. Then she'd start crying, but not before getting up with bright red cheeks and a steely gaze and heading toward your bedroom.

Dinner always got made.

God forbid anyone refuse any portion of dinner, fight under the table, or talk back.

The greatest irony being "be nice to your mother," or "respect your mom"

After terse lips from my mother, my father would threaten to take us upstairs.
Upstairs meant bending over on our beds, bedroom light yellow on the walls while you took off your leather belt. I still can't hear the clink of the belt loop without remembering the spot on my bed where I chipped the paint to focus on anything else.

I'm convinced a part of you enjoyed it when we cried, brothers defying with their eyes and getting hit, ruby red on all cheeks, tears rolling down but not making a sound.
They got it the worst. Was it self loathing that made you hit until 8:30? He looks just like you, it never made sense why he had the darkest bruises.

After dinner in silence, and we could hear fighting from your downstairs bedroom. Mom never liked when you took it that far, pain in her eyes when you would walk us up to our rooms alone. You fought a lot about it, I think you were proud to be the disciplinarian. She just didn't appreciate you? Strange.

Upstairs the boys got out the noisy plastic light-up toys meant to distract children from their parents' imminent divorce, and we played.

You'll never know the kinds of worlds we created to escape from that, the kinds of children we wished we were, in imaginary houses we all knew our family would never afford.

If it got really bad, we would hide in the closet. Together with a flashlight and our favorite books or Pokémon cards, cracking jokes about teachers at school when any of the others looked like they were listening a little too intently to you calling mom a bitch. 

If it got even worse, you'd stumble out of your bedroom with fermented wheat on your breath and call for us to come downstairs, proclaiming that we were leaving and to pack quick because you were starting the car.  Mom would cry in front of us then, yelling about how you were not taking her children, especially not in a car after your 13 beers. She would usher us back to our rooms, holding us tight and reading me stories about princesses as the green metal door slammed shut and the ignition started.

It didn't always happen this way,
But when it did,
I wished you would leave forever.